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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watrose!chmorris
From: chmorris@watrose.UUCP (chmorris)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.celts,net.music.folk
Subject: Re: "Mewn Awen fwyn lawen byw byth y bo hi"
Message-ID: <7760@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Jan-86 11:14:19 EST
Article-I.D.: watrose.7760
Posted: Fri Jan 17 11:14:19 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jan-86 01:02:06 EST
References: <768@lasspvax.UUCP> <1674@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: chmorris@watrose.UUCP ()
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 27
Xref: watmath net.nlang.celts:294 net.music.folk:405
Summary: 

In article <1674@brl-tgr.ARPA> matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt ) writes:
>It's always dangerous when an idiot gets hold of a dictionary and tries to
>translate from a language he knows little about, BUT that's never stopped me
>before, so:
	I sent a mail message to the originator of this topic a while back,
but since someone else seems to be interested:
>
>Awen =  Muse (the root -awen- appears in several words meaning
>        "poet," "poetry," and the like, so maybe the Muse referred to
>        is the Muse of Poetry);
Yes, Awen is the 'muse' of poetry/prophecy; but it refers to the amorphous
	type of spirit, rather than a personified Goddess like the Greek
	muses.
>y =     the (pronounced like the English word "a" in the phrase "a book.")
>po =    a particle used to indicate the superlative (the "p" mutates into
>        a "b" here);
>
>It may be (a wild guess on my part) that "byth y bo" is some sort of Welsh
>idiom meaning "for ever and ever."  
y bo : bo is a contracted form of bod (to be); I don't know the linguistic
	name for the tense but it corresponds to 'may it be so' or 'let it
	be such-&-such' in English.  'y' doesn't actually mean 'the' here -
	it is used as a sort of connector for the clauses. 
>"May she [i.e., Cambria] live forever and ever in mild, joyful Poetry!"
	That's the gist of it.  The words given are an approximate translation
of Ceiriog's Welsh verses; in those, the 'she' actually refers to the whole
Isle of Britain and the context is a sort of Welsh may-Britannia-rule-the-waves-forever.